


Guard in the Garden

by st_ivalice



Series: Forever in Flux [2]
Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: F/M, Fencing, First to Draw Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7659142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_ivalice/pseuds/st_ivalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It began with him stoking the fire and flourishing the poker in a display meant to impress her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guard in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted in 2 parts on Tumblr.

It began with him stoking the fire and flourishing the poker in a display meant to impress her—and it _did_ impress her, for her eyes danced in the firelight—and she closed Newton’s _Principia_ gently and stood, her skirt swishing as it fell to her heels. She flourished her hand in opening gesture, a corner of her lips pulling upwards.

“ _En garde.”_

He made to grin at her warning, taking it as jest like the direction their challenges usually went, but he looked to her stance, balanced and set, and he knew that he had made a critical error. He flicked his eyes back to hers to rectify it, hearing her toe swish across the floor, already shifting her weight as she edged closer to the wall.

And Father’s rapiers perched ceremonially on it.

He drew the poker up involuntarily in defense. There was a new tension that heightened every one of his senses, even his dueling sense that had fallen dormant since he’d finished school. The rapt attention of her eyes made him wonder if perhaps she had never let the prowess forbidden to her sex go neglected as he had. Her gaze could have made him tremble. He knew how his peers fought, how his father fought, but he never evaluated _himself_ , never considered his battle shift of attack and guard, for who ever clashed in a duel with oneself unless it was of the psyche?

But they were no Jekyll and Hyde. There was no dichotomy, only singularity. A duel like this would produce no victor. Would they be two lonely kings on a checkered board?

Robert anticipated her next move.

She turned her back to him, deliberately, as she removed a weapon from its resting place. It was ingrained in his very being that she trusted him, as he did himself, but the vulnerable position forced his thoughts to consider also, if she had used to her advantage, a gentleman’s underestimation and chivalry. The tip at her belly, she presented him the weapon hilt-first, like some modern Juliet.

“You’re serious?”

Her eyebrow perked to challenge him of a time when she was not. “I’ve heard that you are marvelous.”

He challenged her then. “And who, sweet sister, told you _that_?” For he knew it never could have happened.

She tilted her chin up, a delicious smile about her lips. “You.”

His grin returned at her narcissism, and he wrapped his fingers about the hilt, extending his arm to test the tempered steel.

“Where shall we make this _marvelous display_? Machines and armchairs are not proper substitutes for corridors and stairways.”

“The garden should suffice,” she said, turning on her heel. “As would your trousers for my skirt.”

**[{-}]**

 

“Shall we lay some rules, then?”

With one leg raised on the dry stone fountain, she folded the trouser length to avoid the hardened earth, looking well adjusted, it seemed, to the fittings of the patriarchy she had navigated and conquered. And she fit them _well._

 _Her_ in his clothing; he wasn’t sure if it was some primal masculine possessiveness, some Fruedian principle that was no longer dormant within him, or that her frame, the swell of her hips, the full length of her legs, was both visible and hidden from his eyes.

“Eyes on your opponent’s, Brother,” she smirked.

For the second time, he corrected his error, though for an entirely different reason than before. Perhaps, this was why women were excluded in the classical sport. An _advantage_ was held.

But he was beyond the comparisons of the sexes, now. When one had themselves to compare to, one would only realize that the illusion of differences came from the exterior influence of society.

He did not answer quick enough and as she placed her heel back on the ground, she shifted her weight again, hips thrusting when she leaned back on the other leg.“First to draw blood wins?” she smiled, but it was tinged with delicious provocation.

Were he in his original reality, he would have returned the delight, but what was once reward became penalty in his transfer. “That’s hardly fair. What if I recall a move Father taught you?” It happened with the piano, surely it might happen here. He was forever at a disadvantage with her.

“First to draw blood _forcefully_ ,” she drawled.

He nodded, and a shadow of his former self returned in the curl of his lips. “ _En garde._ ”

 

* * *

 

She lunged; a direct assault that he was sure she opened with in every duel. Perhaps she sought to prove every gentleman’s assumption wrong. Or did she alter her attack and bared her true self for him alone?

He parried; a fraction too late. Beyond the deflecting steel, he witnessed her grin, and he returned the lunge to see if he would reflect back to her the same expression.

Her arm was strong and she knocked it aside effortlessly as she would a harsh word. Robert grinned, but for her form and temperament. From the left, he tried another, only to be forced back into defense. Her lip curled derisively, and her chin tipped upwards the slightest.

“I see Father didn’t hold back instructing you proper technique,” he said, pressing his disadvantage with an unorthodox move. He dared not look at her feet, for he might stop at her hips.

“Why should he?” she countered, taking a stance to mirror his. Then she twisted her torso and she was backlit by the sliver of sun, her chest in ample profile. “Fathers _love_ their daughters.”

Robert stepped forward. “Fathers also love their sons.” His blade jabbed forward.

With a flourish, she swept his blade aside again, an arm behind her back. “Yes, because they’re supposed to. They carry the name, the trade, but a daughter? She must give up everything. So it’s only natural he gave me a legacy of his.”

She attacked him with a sudden frenzy; with everything. As he worked to deflect her flurry, he realized that she was neither daughter or son for their Father.She could be neither, as she was _both._

And she was _better_.

There was a spark in him, a competitiveness, a rivalry. His awareness increased and he saw an opening.

“I may not have an extra appendage, but,” she huffed, deflecting his thrust and lunging with one of her own, “for what I _lack_ , Father said--”

She grunted when he nearly knocked her blade from her hand. For the briefest of moments her poise was gone.

“Father said _what_?” The corner of his mouth quirked.

Her jaw set and her eyes steeled and he was suddenly afraid of his own hubris.His gut pitted as her toe moved in a sweeping arc to change her stance, no longer mirroring his.

“Father _said_ ,” she began again, both in voice and in attack, each stroke and swing executed with more power and precision than the last. “I. Have. **Aptitude**.” She pressed harder than before, and he stumbled down the garden steps under the pressure.

Her final stroke came unexpectedly upwards, forcing his blade from his grip. It clattered on the cold steps between them as he dropped to a knee.

He must have appeared struck dumb by her performance, her elegance, her lethality. Rosalind gazed down at him, the final golden daylight setting her hair in the appearance of brilliant flames.

She panted lightly from the calisthenics, and softened her features. “It was the only option I allowed if I had to put up with Mother’s corrective ways,” she said, voice returning to its normal timbre.

Casually, she used the tip of her boot to flick his forfeited sword into the air and catch it with her _left_ hand.

Like a red-haired queen, she peered down at him and handed him her blade, keeping his.

Robert accepted it and stood once more, wrapping his hand around the hilt. Her warmth still clung to the steel and he was reinvigorated by the familiarity; it was the same grip.

“And you, brother? Lessons? Duels?”

He was ashamed to answer, knowing she had neither. “Both.”

“Good,” she said.

The blade still remained in her left hand for a moment longer as she tested the weight and he was fearful of the possibility she had had unorthodox training and might switch dueling hands. To push the thought aside, he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.

Irritably, she loosened her collar, plucking the button from its eyelet, exposing the elegant curve of her neck. In their duel, her hair had fallen loose and he could not glance away from the damp strands that clung to her skin. He moistened his lips carefully, the salt of his sweat lingering on his tongue. Or was it a phantom sensation?

“ _Eyes_ , Brother,” she reminded a third time, but she looked to the swell of his muscles when he drew back his arm to reposition his stance.

He nodded his readiness and she lunged again.

Their duel was silent now. Where he parried, she parried. Where he lunged, she lunged. He knew she would become bored very soon. He looked at her face, only to find her smiling. The expression, unlike her usual smile, was reflective, personal, as if she was privy to information only she had. Was she preparing to best him in some marvelous maneuver?

"I had a thought," she started, still matching thrust for thrust.

" _Did_  you now?" he countered. They were dueling on two fronts now.

She hummed, deflecting both his attacks. "A fantasy, really, though perhaps it’s reality in a universe or other."

"What sort of kind?" Robert gripped his blade tighter for fear he would stop to learn every detail of it.

"We’ve a house, in the English countryside." She twirled with her sword, a flourish that dropped her low. "We’re riding, racing, on horses. I'm winning."

He hummed now, dropping a swing that made their swords lock. 

"Do you know why?" She uttered, voice low as she pushed back against his strength.

He struggled against her own. In their diminished space, heat trapped in the air between them.

"Because I've  _let_  you," he breathed. His victory was never in _besting her_. It was the reward of seeing her _victorious_ ; upturned chin, brilliant eyes, spreading smile.

He searched for her smile first, and that was his fatal error. The force of her blade lessened. She swung once more, the tip of her sword slicing into the sinew of his shoulder.

“Ah!” He doubled over and reflexively moved to defend himself. The pain intensified.

“You didn’t block,” she said, eyes rounded. She dropped her guard and went to tend to him immediately.

“I was distracted.”

She glanced at him seriously. "By what?” 

“What else?” he gritted.

“So no matter what, it is my fault?” She said quietly.

As she moved him to sit on the steps, Robert regretted his insinuation. For a moment, there was silence again as she examined the wound.

"Is every action between us to always demand blood?" He lamented.

Rosalind paused, looking to the fountain instead of his face, and he knew it was to hide her emotion. She squeezed his forearm before sliding further and grasping his hand. "Only the ones that separate us."

Facing him again, she smiled, eyes alight with her implication.

He would press his lips to hers in a mad rush if she did not tear the remainder of his shirt to tend to his injury.

Rosalind shook her head when she saw his displeasure. “Oh it is already ruined.” She began her delicate work, fingers red with his blood. It was a wonder to him how they had not taken on the color from their constant staining.

“So you’ve won then,” Robert started. Her silence worried him, though it was a consequence of her intense concentration.

“Won? I should think not,” she scoffed. One of her hands slid under his armpit as the other pressed into the cut to slow the bleeding and she stood to lift him up. “I’ve only won when we are equal.”

He stood, amazed, always, by her, as she kissed him on the steps.

“Come,” she said, leading him back into their home.


End file.
